Mystery of Manhattan cathedral fire deepens as former Gambino mob enforcer is accused of arson by Serbian newspaper

• John
Alite has spent years in prison in America and Brazil but is now free and has
become a motivational speaker

• A
Serbian newspaper has accused ex-mobster of starting a fire that gutted a
Christian Orthodox cathedral

• Investigators
believe inferno was started by candles used in earlier Orthodox Easter services
that were not properly extinguished

• But
others have said the the blaze could be an act of revenge arson

• Church
figures suggest Orthodox buildings are being targeted after the church blocked
a controversial Cardinal from being made a Saint

• In
2008, Alite put his Mafia life behind him, pleading guilty to two murders, four
conspiracies to murder, eight shootings and two attempted shootings

By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 23:02 EST, 7 May 2016
| UPDATED: 14:27 EST, 8 May 2016

John Alite has taken a baseball
bat to countless guys. He has stabbed, shot and killed dozens more, yet despite
putting his Mafia life behind him in 2008, he is now accused of setting fire to
a Manhattan cathedral.

A Serbian newspaper has accused
former Gambino enforcer of torching the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava
on West 25th Street last Sunday.

Speaking to the New York Post, he
called the allegation 'ridiculous.'

Scroll down for video

New life: Mob enforcer John Alite
has put aside a life in the Mafia to become a motivational speaker

Some believe the devastating fire
was an act of arson carried out by people angry that the Orthodox church is
attempting to block a controversial Cardinal from being made a Saint

Alite, who was released from jail
in 2013, said the article was likely planted to inflame long-standing tensions
between Albanians and Serbs.

'That's not what my life is
about,' he said. 'I don't want to be known as the guy who used to kill people
on the street.'

Alite says he called the FBI and
Homeland Security when the article appeared.

'I contacted them,' Alite told
the Post. 'I told them I was being accused of something. Everybody thought it
was ridiculous.'

Investigators believe the blaze
may have been started by candles left over from Easter services on Sunday that
were not properly extinguished before being placed in a cardboard box.

Two services took place in the
morning at the church, with a luncheon scheduled for 1pm that was attended by
around 700 people.

Fortunately nobody was in the
building at the time of the blaze, though a caretaker did attempt to extinguish
the flames before suffering from smoke inhalation and being dragged to safety.

However, members of the community
believe the fire may have been sparked as retaliation for a row over the
church's role in blocking the canonization of Nazi-supporting Cardinal Aloysius
Stepinac, which has caused a rift between Serbia and Croatia.

The theory comes after three
other Orthodox churches across the globe - two in Australia and another in
Russia - also caught fire on Sunday.

'His canonization, to our great
regret, would return the relations between Serbs and Croats, as well as between
Catholics and Orthodox faithful, back to their tragic history.'

More than 170 firefighters were
called to deal with the blaze in the Flatiron district of Manhattan after it
broke out at around 7pm on Sunday

While 700 people are estimated to have
attended Easter services in the building earlier in the day, nobody was inside
at the time the blaze broke out

Designed by Richard M. Upjohn,
founder of the American Institute of Architects, the church was consecrated in
1855 and made a New York landmark in 1968

Dusan T. Batakovic, a former
Serbian ambassador, told the New York Post: 'Too many churches have burned to
call it an accident.

'It is very strange that it
happened, that the fires all took place on Easter, the greatest Christian
Orthodox holiday. Some kind of terrorist action can not be excluded.'

Alite, meanwhile, has been out of
jail for the past four years and has 'reinvented' himself as a motivational
speaker who hopes to 'scare kids straight,' give corporate employees an
aggressive edge and consult on movies and TV shows trying to accurately portray
the world in which he once live and excelled.

For more than twenty years Alite
was a high ranking member of the Gambino crime family. He worked for the Gottis
– both father and son. He was, he said, 'at the top of the food chain', one of
their top earners and enforcers.

He could never be a 'made' man in
the mafia but he thought he was moving in a world governed by rules; codes of
honour, loyalty and respect.

Then, when he was in jail in
Brazil, Alite was passed secret 302s (files kept by the FBI documenting
interviews with their informants) showing that John Gotti Jr, the man who had
stood by him when he married his first wife in 1998, was 'a super-rat'. And everything
changed.

In 2008 he secretly pleaded
guilty to two murders, four conspiracies to murder, at least eight shootings
and two attempted shootings as well as armed home invasions and armed robberies
in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida.